ANTH 005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Moe Williams, Forensic Anthropology, Culture Shock
9 May 2020
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Document Summary
Holistic approach to linguistic anthropology: assumes that understanding these four fields is necessary to understand humans, goes beyond analyzing the structure and pattern of language, examines contexts and situations in which language is used. Theoretical linguistics: seeks universal principles, focuses on form and structure, works to develop universal rules. Boas & fieldwork: language v. culture v. race language is a window into culture language is necessary for fieldwork. Fieldwork concerns: culture shock, illness, ethics. Different languages encapsulate different world views: english puts separate ideas into separate words, inuit puts strings of ideas into long words. Influence of culture on language: vocabulary- kinship terms, snow, color system, subculture vocabulary- public transport terms, military terms, music terms. Ethnosemantics / cognitive anthropology / ethnoscience: study of how members of a speaking community categorize their experience by analyzing the semantic organization of their vocabulary, vocabulary indicates native categories/culturally important distinctions, research, creating a taxonomy.
